Editorial Reviews

Most people know the basic plot of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel about double identities and internal conflict, but few students of literature have witnessed the story and its characters explode off the page as they do here. In this soundscaped audiobook, listeners discern not only the voices of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde struggling for mastery, but also a full cast of peripheral characters like London prostitutes and Hyde’s victims. Because the story is told almost exclusively through dialogue, listening to actor Daniel Taylor’s dramatized opus feels like attending a stage production. Complete with chilling musical interludes, this textured interpretation will make fans envision the literary classic in a new, more complex way.

Publisher's Summary

Suppose you could travel the streets in a perfect disguise and commit any crime, indulge any vice, do whatever you wanted, to anyone you wanted, unburdened by guilt or remorse, and no one would ever know it was you. What would you do? Would you ever stop?

Would you still be yourself? Or can a creature without compassion, without self-restraint, without morals, still be called human at all?

Robert Louis Stevenson claimed that the basic story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came to him in a nightmare. As Stevenson told the story, the secret of the relationship between the respectable Henry Jekyll and the malevolent Edward Hyde was not revealed until the final chapter.

The biggest challenge we faced in adapting this classic was its fame: the central mystery of the original tale is common knowledge, and "Jekyll and Hyde" has become a synonym for "split personality". We turned our attention to the central conflict of the story, the struggle between duty and lust for the soul of Henry Jekyll. Listeners can decide for themselves who wins that battle.

This is a full-cast, soundscaped audio dramatization from one of the classic authors.